The Trouble With Panties
by Phindle
Summary: A pair of panties, some crackers and a smidgen of Valentine’s drunkenness changes things between Ray and Neela. Reela


Authored on livejournal as Bingelybeep

Rating: T for some sexual content and a naughty word or two.

Disclaimer: I do not own ER or any the characters or recognisable situations. This story is written and published for personal enjoyment and the love of the characters. No profit is being made.

Summary: A pair of panties, some crackers and a smidgen of Valentine's drunkenness changes things between Ray and Neela. (Reela)

**The Trouble With Panties**

Surprisingly Ray had found that he really enjoyed living with Neela. She actually believed in cleaning which was a nice change from living with any of his bandmates and he never had to worry about her peeing around the base of the toilet. She also made the place smell really nice. On her days off she'd cook curries and things he couldn't name that made the whole apartment smell spicy and warm. And he'd found she had a thing for long baths that made everything smell like something clean and flowery, not overpowering, just fresh and sweet. Sure she yelled at him when he played his music too loud, or at all, and she didn't like it when he left the toilet seat up or drank from the orange juice carton or let his friends stay over. But he could deal with that because she paid half the rent and she was actually pretty good company on the rare occasions that they saw each other between shifts. She was smart, funny and had no compunctions about telling Ray where to stick it if he suggested she did the grocery shopping.

Then there was the advantage to living with Neela that he hadn't even thought about until Brett pointed it out after staying on their couch one night. Neela was hot. Not in the polished, made up way that most women were, Neela was hot 24/7. When she walked into the apartment reeking of formaldehyde after working a 14 hour shift, she was hot. When she was bitching because Ray had eaten the last of the cereal and put the box back in the cupboard, she was hot. When she'd just woken up in the morning, she was hot. Ray had begun to see a pattern here.

And there were definitely advantages to living with a hot woman. Firstly there were the practical ones, tradesmen seemed a lot more eager to come round when Neela was the one who asked them, take the plumber for instance. Ray called him, it'd be two weeks before he came, Neela asked and he was there that morning. The same thing had happened with the satellite installation man and the locksmith.

Then there were the not so practical ones. She didn't take hours in the bathroom like he would have expected, in fact except for the baths she seemed to be a shower-and-run kind of girl. And she didn't leave make up all over the place or need some of his closet space for her clothes. But, the problem was that every so often Ray would be struck by her absolute… hotness. Sometimes it would have been impossible not to. Like the time when she accidentally left her underwear in her room when she was showering. Ray had been happily watching the cartoon network when the vision of loveliness that was a soaking wet Neela in nothing but a rather small towel had streaked across the room. It had taken a couple of seconds for him to register what he had just seen, by which time her door had slammed shut but it was ok because the image had been permanently burned onto his retinas anyway. It was an image he called up and enjoyed on a regular basis. She didn't show them off very often but Neela had really good legs, especially when only the top few inches of thigh were being hidden by an evil towel that deserved to be burnt.

And a couple of days ago he had woken up in the middle of the night and gone to get a drink only to find Neela in the kitchen. More specifically Neela in the kitchen searching for a snack before going to bed. Wearing an oversized t-shirt that covered little more leg than the towel had and a pair of blue panties. He knew about the panties because she'd been scavenging in the fridge. Bending forwards to scavenge in the fridge. Her head stuck right in there as she leaned in and rummaged, ass sticking out and begging Ray to grab it. Thank God he'd controlled that impulse or he might have been minus a few limbs by now. Now, as well as knowing about her really good legs, Ray know Neela had a great ass too.

Of course after the incident he liked to refer to in his head as Panty-Gate he was pretty sure that Neela was too pissed at him to ever wear such revealing nightwear again. At least not where he could see it. But then what he'd done next probably hadn't been the best idea he'd ever had. Leaning back on the kitchen counter and admiring the view had been a pretty good idea, a great idea in fact even if it was sexual harassment and an invasion of panty privacy. However, wolf whistling and calling out "Nice panties, Rasgotra," had definitely not been a good idea, especially as it made her jump and bang her head on one of the fridge shelves. The real downfall had probably been grinning and winking at her when she extricated herself and turned to glare at him.

As all she'd done was glare at him and ask in a very dangerous tone of voice, "What the hell have you done with my bloody crackers?" he figured she'd found the whole thing insulting rather than attractive. If he were thinking about it he'd guess it hadn't helped that he'd told her the crackers were in one of the high cupboards over the worktops when he knew full well he'd eaten them already. But it was as if he couldn't control his mouth. His brain had automatically flashed up a visual of what Neela would look like, stretching up on tip toes to reach into the cupboard, t-shirt riding up, panties peeking out once more and he was saying it before he realised what was going on. And the view had been better than he'd imagined. Every muscle in her legs taut, as far onto her toes as she could be, bending forward slightly to reach into the cupboard, intent on her search, and then turning round and glaring at him as though she wanted to crack his chest without any anaesthetic. The last part wasn't so good. Definitely hadn't helped that he had quite clearly been checking her out. Again.

"You've eaten them haven't you?" her mouth was set in a hard 'don't fuck with me' line and Ray's instinct for self preservation finally kicked in.

"Umm, yeah. I'll get some more at the Jumbomart tomorrow." He felt the need to explain but was silenced by the death glare he was receiving.

"Right." It was final and cold and the death glare was still at laser intensity. With that she stalked off back to her room.

Trying desperately not to turn round and check out the view again Ray gripped onto the counter and yelled out, "Sorry."

He was pretty sure he heard her mutter something about "You will be," but chose to hope he hadn't.

That was why he wasn't surprised a few days later when he got home from work and found Neela was out. Normally she'd be there puttering about, reading a textbook or watching TV but the last few days there had been a significant lack of Neela in the apartment. It made it worse that in 1 hour and 45 minutes Valentine's Day would be over. Ray had decided not to do anything to celebrate the commercialised pile of crap holiday but he had bought a cheap bottle of wine on the way home and hoped he and Neela could share it and mock bad romantic comedies together to try and make up for his being a pervert. Apparently not. He'd even chosen the cheap wine especially so there was no chance she'd realise how he felt about her. Neela probably had a date anyway. Really he should clear out and stay in his room in case she decided to bring her date back for… coffee. With that thought in mind Ray determinedly sat down on the couch with a huge pile of snacks and turned on the TV. The idea of anyone having… coffee with Neela bothered Ray quite a lot. He knew she was hot and he found her very attractive, and she was fun and easy to talk to when she wasn't being too anally retentive. He really did like her a lot, and the fact that she lived only a wall away from him certainly would make a relationship simple. Trouble was, from the way she'd been religiously avoiding him since Panty-Gate it seemed that she didn't like the idea nearly as much as he did. Shit.

He'd been watching Drew Barrymore humiliate herself in a ridiculous romantic comedy for nearly an hour when he heard the sound of scratching on the apartment door. Thinking that maybe the dog their neighbours weren't supposed to have had escaped again he went to the door and opened it to find an unexpected sight. Neela was sprawled on the floor attacking the door with her key and missing the lock by a mile. It took her a moment to realise that the door was no longer there and then she lifted her head to stare confusedly at Ray. From a cursory inspection of her glazed eyes, flushed cheeks and the reek of whisky coming from her, along with her apparent lack of higher brain function or motor control, Ray decided that Neela was drunk off her ass. Her face split into a huge grin and she grabbed onto his legs in a vice grip, nuzzling his knees and announcing cheerfully, "Hey Ray. I'm really pissed."

He was confused for a moment. "What about? Valentine's date go badly?"

Now she seemed confused, "Huh? No date, no date for me. Just drinking. Lots of drinking… with Bob… nice man… runs a bar." She was slurring a little. Suddenly realisation seemed to dawn. "No!" she yelled, "Not pissed. _Pissed_. Y'know, drunk. Silly American." She patted his leg affectionately, a little too close to his crotch for Ray's composure.

"Come on Neela, lets get you inside," he said and started trying to untangle her from his legs which was relatively easy as she was in no condition to fight. Trying to get her to stand up was an entirely different matter. He had no idea how she managed to get home from wherever she'd been because right now her legs seemed to be incapable of holding her up. The whole situation was doing nothing for his already Neela obsessed libido. To lift her up in the first place he had to pull her up by her arms, effectively dragging her up his body until she was leaning flush against him with her arms around his neck. When she started to bury her head in his chest and murmur "Mmm, Ray smells nice," it had been very hard not to drop her immediately out of pure self preservation.

He tried to lift her up but it was a really awkward way to carry her. It meant he had to hold on tightly to her waist, pulling he even more closely against him. Which was all good except that now he was this close to her face Ray could tell that Neela was really drunk. He was almost getting drunk on the fumes. It was not good to start getting worked up about your extremely drunk, extremely hot roommate when she was in no condition to tell you to get your damn hands off her. Woah, when she actually seemed to find you very attractive when she was wearing industrial strength beer goggles, Ray thought, as Neela tried to wrap her legs around his hips, giggling like a hyena on speed.

Chuckling at the amount of blackmail material he would have in the morning Ray quickly bent forwards, placing his shoulder in Neela's stomach and heaving her up so she was hanging over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, grateful when she didn't vomit on him. Neela seemed to be very confused for a moment after the world turned upside down but she quickly got a grip. On Ray's ass, specifically. Ray rolled his eyes, desperately trying to think about the humour and the blackmail material as Neela patted his ass. Then she grabbed the waistband of his boxers and pulled slightly, very nearly causing Ray a great deal of pain.

"Hey, nice panties, Barnett," she said giggling again, then her hand moved back to his ass to give it a firm squeeze, she sighed, "nice arse too. Dr. Barnett have you been working out?"

Ray unceremoniously threw her onto the couch at that point and then backed off to the kitchen to get her some water. He really needed to put some space between the two of them. He just had to remember that Neela was extremely drunk, she didn't mean any of this. She just seemed to have a thorough appreciation for his ass when under the influence of alcohol. 'And let's face it, who wouldn't?' thought Ray, after all he had a damn fine ass, he knew the nurses liked it, had caught them collectively staring a couple of times. Except Malik, obviously.

Returning to the living room Ray leaned over the back of the couch and took a moment to look at Neela. He'd thought she was hot before but right now she was beautiful. She was sprawled on the sofa, an arm and a leg hanging off the side. Her eyes were closed and her head slumped to the side showing off her throat. Her cheeks and lips were flushed and she was breathing heavily, breasts he so often stared at rising and falling, threatening to spill out of the tight button up shirt she was wearing. Her hair was loose and fanned out around her head in a dark cloud. He wished he could run his fingers through it and knew that if he ever did it would be silky and soft. The shoe had fallen off her left foot, which hung off the couch. He thought that Neela had beautiful feet, small, dainty, a creamy coffee colour. Right now the nails were painted a bright red. Ray smiled, that was Neela, passionate and bold, but only where no one else could see.

As he took her in Ray thought that Neela looked like she'd just had the life kissed out of her, all flushed and rumpled. Which only lead him into the fantasies he'd been having about her lately. Fantasies about finishing the next argument they had by just grabbing her and kissing her, showing her exactly how amazing she was.

"Why're you staring at me Ray?" Neela asked, opening her eyes slowly and turning to look at him.

Ray tried to slip back into the obnoxious roommate role. "Just wondering if I should move my guitars in case you vomit."

Neela laughed, "Give it a while." She turned her head to look at the TV and saw the rom com playing and the bottle of wine on the table. "Got one of your girlfriends coming over?"

"Nah. Just thought I'd console my lonely heart with some vino. But it seems like you did better than I would have done. Exactly how many distilleries did you drink?"

"Not enough." She pouted for a moment, "Share?" she asked motioning at the wine.

Ray thought about saying something about how she'd had enough but although it wasn't how he'd imagined it, this was what he'd been planning. Just him and Neela on the sofa with some sappy movies and a bottle of wine.

"Sure." He threw himself down on the sofa with her, unscrewing the cap and taking a slug straight from the bottle. He held it out to Neela and she dragged herself up into a sitting position. She took a mouthful and placed the bottle back in his hands before collapsing back down again, this time with her head in his lap.

"'S'good wine," she pronounced, snuggling in. This was not fair, thought Ray as her hand came up to grab one of his and start playing with his fingers, why does she never do this when she's sober?

Neela took his index finger and started tapping it on her face, first her forehead, then the tip of her nose and then her lips. Trying to distract himself from finally feeling the soft texture of her lips, Ray restarted the conversation.

"So, no hot date tonight? What happened, all the cute patients have communicable diseases?"

Neela huffed and he could feel her hot breath through his jeans. "Didn't want a date. No one I like likes me anyway. Stupid bloody men."

"Why do you say that? Because of the Kovac thing? Forget it, guy's clearly got no taste." Ray quickly jerked his hand away realising he'd unconsciously started playing with her hair, twisting the strands around his fingers and pulling at her scalp. He'd been right, it was soft and silky.

Abruptly sitting up again Neela recaptured the wine bottle taking several long gulps and then turning around to face Ray. She was practically sitting in his lap now, she slung her left arm around his neck to pull herself face to face with him, still clutching the wine bottle in her other hand. Their faces and torsos were inches apart now and Ray was starting to get into real difficulty. It wasn't like he'd never been in this situation before, after all he was the ER's king of one night stands, but this was Neela which made everything different and confusing.

He raised his eyes trying to stare at the ceiling and not at the gorgeous face hovering in front of him or the lips he could quite easily start kissing. This was not good.

"What's wrong with me Ray? Am I ugly?"

Ray clamped down on the urge to yell an incredulous 'no!' and start extolling her virtues, instead saying, "No, of course you aren't ugly." There, measured, cool, well done Ray, he thought.

"But not beautiful like Jing Mai or Sam or even pretty like Abby, right? Just, nice. I'm always just nice, just one of the guys."

Ray was momentarily non-plussed. One of the guys? Neela? Not unless the guys were extremely well disguised and attractive transvestites.

"Neela, you're hot ok?" Ray wanted to kick himself when he realised what he'd just said, "Brett thinks so," good cover, "and I agreed," shit. Stop talking you idiot! "Anyway what about that soldier guy? He had a thing for you from what I hear at the nurses' station."

"He has a thing for me from Iraq! That doesn't count!" shouted Neela, before pausing for a moment and visibly thinking back over what he'd just said. "You think I'm hot?"

There was no way to answer that with her pressed up against him like she was without getting himself into some serious danger. He opened his mouth to make some kind of flattering but non-commital answer when suddenly it wasn't an issue anymore because Neela was kissing him. She'd just leaned forward and started kissing him and he couldn't help it, he was kissing her back. It was even better than he'd imagined. Her lips were unbelievably soft, just rubbing across his, pressing more firmly, and then her hand was in his hair and she was opening her mouth to suck on his lower lip. Ray couldn't help it he had to get closer, so he threaded one hand tightly into her hair, holding her lips firmly against his as his other hand moved to her ass, finally grabbing it as he pulled her across so she was straddling his lap. That was when the hand in her hair turned to a fist and he began to nip and lick at her lips, demanding entry. Neela definitely didn't seem to have any problems with that, groaning and thrusting her tongue into his mouth. The kiss was a battle as they fought to get closer to each other, hands roaming everywhere they could reach and tongues rolling against each other. Ray felt himself beginning to harden and when Neela shifted and began to rock her hips against him Ray couldn't help groaning and thrusting up towards her. The amount of heat they were generating felt like it could set fire to the apartment and Ray pushed her coat off her shoulders, quickly unbuttoning the shirt she was wearing. It slipped off and onto the floor but he was too busy with Neela's incredible mouth to appreciate what he had just uncovered.

His tongue delved deeper into Neela's mouth tasting the sweet, medicinal taste of whisky as his hand came up to cup her through her bra. That's when he remembered, whisky, shit. Ray ripped his mouth away with a physical effort. For a moment the pair just sat as they were, panting and staring at each other. Ray really was about to say something sensitive about how they shouldn't be doing this while she was drunk when he remembered where his hand was, which meant that he automatically looked at where his hand was. And as it turned out Neela had great breasts too. Plump and heaving as she tried to get her breath back, Ray wasn't sure if he'd ever seen anything as beautiful and edible as her warm brown skin. Seeing his large hand with it's black fingernails and bracelets covering Neela's pink satiny bra was so incredible it stopped him for a few moments. Unsurprisingly Neela took his drooling over her chest as a sign of encouragement, leaning forward and beginning to suckle his neck. She nipped playfully at his jawline and tugged at his earlobe with her teeth, one hand buried deep in his hair as the other moved under his shirt and slowly up his chest. Ray was almost certain he was in heaven and although he was trying hard to remember that he shouldn't be doing this, he found that the hand on Neela's breast was beginning to move of it's own accord. She moaned in response and began to rock against him again, Ray's other hand returning to her ass, squeezing firmly before pulling their lower bodies into closer contact.

Then Neela was moving back and removing his hands. At first Ray was confused, then he guessed that she must be realising what a drunken mistake she was making. As she tugged up the hem of his t-shirt he realised that she was just trying to get his shirt off. In the seconds that it took her to get it over his head Ray unfortunately managed to get some level of control back and realised that he really needed to stop this right now.

Grabbing Neela by the shoulders and holding her body away from his Ray tried to focus slightly above her left ear, his libido was far too precarious to look anywhere else.

"Neela, stop. Look, you're really drunk and we have to live together after this, I just don't think-" he tried but Neela cut him off by scrambling off him, overbalancing and landing with a thump at the other end of the sofa.

She curled into herself and when she spoke after a few seconds there was a tremble in her voice that betrayed how upset she was. "What so I'm not even good enough for pity sex now?" she looked up at the ceiling and Ray could see the beginnings of tears in her eyes, "God, I'm so pathetic. Getting drunk just to work up the courage to throw myself at you and you're not even interested."

Well, that had thrown Ray for a loop. So she wasn't throwing herself at him because she was drunk, she was drunk so she could throw herself at him? Huh. The confusion on Ray's face was apparently too much for Neela because she burst off the couch, staggering to her room. Seemed her legs still weren't working too well because on the way she kept stumbling and managed to bang her elbow hard into a cabinet, giving a small yelp of pain. It was that which broke Ray out of his stupor. He shot up, rushing after Neela and reaching her just in time to slam shut the door she was opening, trapping her against it. His arms on either side of her, his pelvis flush against the small of her back and pushing her up against the door. His belly was pressed against her back, skin to skin and he had to fight to keep control of himself. He reached up and pushed her hair to one side, baring her neck. She moaned and shuddered slightly as he sucked on her skin, tugging lightly at it with his teeth before covering her throat with hot, feverish kisses. He pushed closer to her body and ground himself against her, letting her feel his arousal. Neela moaned again and Ray could hear her breathing become harsher as he whispered in her ear, "Do you still think I'm not interested?"

She shook her head as much as she could while she was pressed flat against the door. Ray stepped back enough to turn her around and then closed back in again. "Neela, stop being stupid. You're hot as hell. When I was looking at you lying on the couch earlier this evening I thought you were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. And there is no way this is going to be pity sex. I want you, I just don't want you while you're too drunk to know what you're doing."

"I know what I'm doing," whispered Neela, finally raising her eyes to his face.

"Sure?" Ray asked again, lifting the elbow she had hit on her escape to the bedroom and leaning down to salve it with his lips and tongue.

"Sure," she whimpered, eyes closing at the feeling.

"In that case," said Ray, opening the door and slowly stalking Neela back towards her bed, "I hope to God you're wearing those blue panties, I've missed them." With that he pushed Neela down onto the bed, crawling after her. Pinning her giggling form beneath him he glance at the clock before crushing his lips back to hers. 10 minutes until Valentine's day was over. Excellent work, he was pretty sure he was forgiven for being a pervert now, thought Ray. Then as Neela wrapped her legs around his hips he stopped thinking at all.

FIN

Thanks for reading.


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